Free Speech in Iraq

Catching up on last Sunday's paper before tomorrow's Sunday paper arrives. Boston Globe.

"Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council has barred reporters from the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera from government offices and news conferences for a month, the council said in a statement yesterday."

The US has taken action against Al-Jazeera before. They have no reason other than that Al-Jazeera does not agree with them. Isn't the point of free speech to allow for disagreement?

"In September, the Governing Council imposed a two-week ban on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based news channel, because it suspected the stations had violated rules that include not disclosing information about pending attacks on US troops."

Ok, so the Globe doesn't always have the best writing. I assume they mean by this sentence that there is a rule requiring stations to report pending attacks, not that the rule is to not report attacks, which is what it actually says.

Since when are news agencies supposed to provide the US military with intelligence information? And since when are they banned from doing any kind of reporting unless they provide that information? If this rule required agencies to report any information related to _any_ pending loss of life, I could accept it a little easier.

Not much of a free press taking shape there. I guess this is what happens when you invade a country looking for weapons that aren't there and only afterwards claim to be liberating it---you have no plan for establishing a free society.